"I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning." -- James Joyce

Stories I lived without...

Not that anyone asked, but just in case anyone wondered, I am still alive. I have successfully avoided reality for nearly a month, and only came back because my children were beginning to look hungry. They ran out of cereal, the milk went bad, and they were eyeing me like wolves, coming in for the kill. So, I came back to reality, and cooked them some food.

I thought I would go through to see the news I had missed the last month, and just as I suspected, they were basically the same stories from the month before. There were the stupid stories, or more correctly, the stories exhibiting the stupidity of the human race: the stupid new food pyramid. I don't know why they even bother, since they can't ever get it right anyway. Of course, one can always depend on The Onion to cut through the crap. (Is there anyone else out there who is not the slightest bit baffled at why Satire is now the major source of news for thinking adults in this country?)

Speaking of stupid, The latest airport news is out. What a colossal waste of time. You can bring matches, but not a lighter? Big whoop! Of course, the whole thing is just a big waste of time.

Even more stupid, if such a thing is possible, is belief in Voodoo, in MASSACHUSETTS, of all places. You could file this story under the heading: Voodoo as diversity. (Being from Louisiana, I feel I can speak on this subject as something of an expert.)

Cursing or not, a boy whose mother is serving in Iraq should not have been forced to hang up the phone. (And if he hadn't been commanded to get off the phone he wouldn't have cursed, anyway.) He should have been offered a quiet room in which to continue his conversation for as long as he wished.

I have absolutely no idea of how the exchange between the student and teacher progressed. It might be that if the student responded in a calm, polite manner and explained his situation that he might have been given some leeway. If, however, his first response was annoyance and vulgarity it is very likely that any reasonableness on the part of the teacher vanished. The student claims that he tried to explain and was not listened to and that he did not use profanity. The school's position is that he was belligerent and threatening therefore his behavior deserved a harsh punishment. Only the people involved know for sure what was said and how it was said.

But that is a different subject. Your argument that his cursing is a result of his "incarceraton" and being "commanded to get off the phone" is unsupported.